‘TIME MARCHES ON, DOESN’T IT?’

by BRIAN KNAPP

I once viewed winter through a lens of dread. As someone who has fought a lifelong battle with anxiety and depression, it was the season with which I was least compatible. Shorter days, colder weather and the inability to experience the outdoors as much proved to be a difficult emotional maze to navigate. Some of you out there can undoubtedly relate.

Life sped up on me as I aged, got married and had children. Perhaps it was fitting that my youngest son was born in January, for it serves as a reminder that we cannot fit seasons into a box. Good can happen anytime. I look in the mirror sometimes and cannot believe that I turn 45 in May, will have been married for nearly half of those years and have two teenagers at home who will be leaving the nest before we know it. My dad likes to say, “Time marches on, doesn’t it?” Indeed it does, Pops, and all we can do is march along with it. James 4:14 tells us, “Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. For you are just a vapor that appears for a little while, and then vanishes away.” The events of the last few years have taught me to live life one day at a time. Kirby Puckett, one of my favorite baseball players of all-time, once said, “Tomorrow is not promised to any of us.” Wiser words have never been spoken. Puckett died at the age of 45, five years before he was posthumously inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame. With Christmas and all the chaos associated with the holidays now behind us, perhaps we should use the next few months to reflect on what God has done, what He continues to do and what He will do moving forward. His promises to us endure, without regard to the color of the sky or what the temperature on the thermometer might read.

PUBLISHERS’ NOTE

Happy New Year, friends and neighbors. We’re shaking up the Publishers’ Note and doing it a little differently in 2023. Have you ever wondered, “Who are these people?” Well, you’re in luck because we’re going to share a little of our own story in each one.

This picture was our first selfie (Is it still called a selfie when two people are involved?), and it was taken circa 2000, before digital cameras were the norm. We had to blindly snap the picture and hope for the best, then wait for the film to be developed to see how it turned out. Oddly enough, this has been a metaphor for our life together. Leap after leap of faith, hoping for the best as we’ve watched it unfold.

We were both living in Atlanta when we took this picture and had just started dating. On this particular day, we had driven to the Sope Creek Paper Mill Ruins in Marietta to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine. When we got back to the car, we found the keys locked inside—before cellphones were the norm, too. Thankfully, someone who had one eventually came by and let us use it to call for help.

So began a fun-filled life of adventure, with its first of plenty more mishaps to come. We were married three years later on a beautiful Friday night in October, our wedding overlooking Piedmont Park in Atlanta against a backdrop of city lights. Now here we are, nearly 20 years later, with Newton County providing the backdrop for our story. We love how it’s unfolding.

May the Lord bless and keep you.

Scott and Meredith Tredeau